A federal jury on Tuesday convicted Eric Tabaro Nshimiye, 54, of Ohio, on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice, the U.S. Department of Justice announced. The charges are tied to his testimony at a 2019 trial in Boston, where he denied taking part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Nshimiye is also known as Eric Tabaro Nshimiyimana. The Justice Department said he has lived and worked in Ohio since 1995.

According to the department, Nshimiye fled Rwanda in the summer of 1994 and went to Kenya. In 1995 he was admitted to the United States as a refugee after failing to tell immigration officials about his violent role in the genocide. The department said he kept giving false information in later years to obtain lawful permanent residence and then U.S. citizenship.

The convictions come from the trial of Jean Leonard Teganya. The United States charged Teganya in 2017 with fraudulently seeking asylum by hiding his membership in the MRND, a Hutu-dominated ruling party, and his involvement in the genocide. Nshimiye testified for Teganya in 2019 and said that neither man took part in the genocide or belonged to the MRND. Teganya was convicted in April 2019 of two counts of immigration fraud and three counts of perjury.

The Justice Department said evidence at Nshimiye’s trial showed he was a medical student at the University of Rwanda in Butare in the early 1990s. It said he took part in attacks on Tutsi men and women, including striking them on the head with a club. Both he and Teganya were well-known student members of the MRND, according to the evidence.

Victims testified that Nshimiye directly took part in the genocide, the department said. One witness, who was a 17-year-old boy at the time, said he saw Nshimiye club a tailor from the university hospital to death. Other witnesses said Nshimiye took part in roadblocks where Tutsis were separated from Hutus to be killed. Several said he attended political rallies and wore the distinctive clothing of MRND members.

The department said about 800,000 Tutsis were killed in roughly 100 days in the spring of 1994, after the Hutu president’s plane was shot down over Kigali.

Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said Nshimiye lied to immigration officials to become a citizen and lied to a federal jury to protect himself and another perpetrator. U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley for the District of Massachusetts said the verdict means Nshimiye “can no longer hide behind his lies.” Acting Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey Grimming of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New England credited victims who traveled to testify.

Nshimiye faces up to five years in prison on each perjury count and up to 10 years on the obstruction count. He will be sentenced on Jan. 26, 2027. A federal district court judge will decide the sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other legal factors.

HSI Boston investigated the case with help from the agency’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, which was established in 2009. Trial Attorney Alexandra Skinnion of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Looney prosecuted the case. The department said anyone with information about former human rights violators in the United States can contact HSI through its tip line at 1-866-347-2423.